Karuna exists to end caste-based discrimination, poverty and inequality in India and Nepal. Kusaladevi writes about her experience working for Karuna: ”It’s hard to summarise my time working at Karuna. It was such a significant part of my life for around 8 years, coinciding with my ordination process and it feels hard to separate the two out. I feel so fortunate to have worked for a charity that combined my interest in International Development with the Dharma.

Kerala is suffering its worst floods for 100 years. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced and are living in over 1,000 relief camps set up in the State. There have been a number of deaths and many serious injuries. Many are missing. The numbers are rising all the time. But even in such disaster, ugly face of untouchability rises and Dalits are discriminated during relief, as reported by India Today on July 24th, 2018. It happened earlier in Gujarat Earthquake; even the Tsunami...

By Dayamudra on Sun, 30 Nov, 2014 - 14:56“I measure the progress of a community by the degree of progress which women have achieved.” - Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar

Dalit girls and women, those from the lower caste communities, traditionally called “untouchable”, are the most vulnerable of all people in India. These are our students, fellow teachers and our friends at Jai Bhim International, inspired by the social activist and Chief Architect of the Indian constitution, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar. Females in this...

By Dayamudra on Sat, 29 Nov, 2014 - 14:2610 years ago on Christmas day my house burned down, while I was on a Buddhist meditation retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains. Across the world, the same week, a tsunami destroyed villages on the coast of Chennai, southeast India, leaving whole communities homeless, jobless, displaced. Back in San Francisco, lying on Amy and Megan’s couch, feeling sorry for myself on New Year’s eve, faces of newly-orphaned children flickered across a tiny screen. That night I felt grateful for warm...

By Dayamudra on Fri, 28 Nov, 2014 - 16:32Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar might be the most famous Indian you’ve never heard of. Yet if you go into any village, any town, any city, anywhere in India, you will see statues, paintings, and shrines devoted to him. Did you know that there are more statues in his image than of anyone else in the country? You will hear people every day, if you listen carefully, greeting one another with “Jai Bhim”. “Long live Dr. Ambedkar and his comitment...

Although they won’t sell you something for Christmas, they’ll certainly do something amazing with your money when you give someone you love the gift of supporting Jai Bhim’s inspiring new Give Them Shelter appeal to build a dormitory for girl students in India.Support Give Them Shelter

By Candradasa on Wed, 8 Oct, 2014 - 17:00A couple of months ago I was sitting in a room at Adhisthana, listening to my friend Mokshini speak very movingly about some quite profound shifts in her own sense of Dharma practice. She talked about having newly considered in her own life the sorts of issues raised by Triratna’s participation in Buddhist Action Month every year: environmental concerns, economic questions, all manner of socially engaged topics relevant to anyone looking to explore the...

By Munisha on Wed, 19 Mar, 2014 - 00:20Shakyajata writes: “Dr B.R. Ambedkar, the great leader of the ‘outcaste’ (or ‘Dalit’) people of India, recommended in many of his writings a very specific way to put an end to the ‘hell of caste’ from which so many people still suffer in modern India. This ‘infallible’ method, he said, was exogamy: inter-caste marriage.

On 13th February, a Triratna marriage took place in India which was inter-cultural, even inter-racial, as well as inter-caste.